


a hopeful undertone

by constellatns



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Tender - Freeform, listen I just had to do something I’m so happy for them, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 09:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20561717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatns/pseuds/constellatns
Summary: tyler shares a bit of wisdom with his baby, and gains a little more when he does it.





	a hopeful undertone

**Author's Note:**

> I’m too happy for the josephs ok I had to do this 
> 
> enjoy

one night about a week after she came home, the baby wakes up at 2:14 am. Both Tyler and Jenna stir awake and Tyler sits up first. He pats Jenna’s arm and says, “I’ll get her, I got it.”

Jenna replies a sleepy, “Are you sure? I can.” 

Tyler smiles as he looks down at her, eyes shut but facing him. His heart always pounds faster when he looks at her but in these past nine months it’s burst every time. 

“I got her, hun. Get some sleep,” he says with a smile Jenna doesn’t see. 

She hums an agreement and settles back into sleep and Tyler goes to the nursery. 

It’s walls are a powder yellow with stencil paintings of flowers and butterflies and birds all of which Jenna insisted they did themselves. Tyler smiles at the memory of it taking him, Jenna, his siblings, Josh, Debby, and Jordan to finish the paintings. Of course, all of that made Jenna smile wider. _It has a little bit of our whole family in it, now_, she turned to him saying. It’s hard to imagine that wasn’t her plan the whole time. 

Tyler's glad for it, either way. 

He reaches in and picks his crying daughter up, rocks her gently in his arms. 

“Hey, hey, you’re okay. Yeah, don't worry,” Tyler starts bouncing softly as he rocks her. “Did you have a nightmare? Those can be pretty scary, believe me I’ve had my fair share. But you’re okay, you’re _okay_,” he’s seen Jenna talk to her while she was crying before, she wasn’t saying anything wildly important but all the baby could do was focus on Jenna and watch her talk. Pretty soon she was smiling.Tyler tries to do that, “You live in a beautiful room that your mom designed. And oh, let me tell you about her. She’s—she’s just the best. You have the best mom in the whole wide world. And I know I’m pretty bias, but I promise that’s one hundred percent true. You’ve been here a week and she’s already nailing this whole parent thing,” it was working, the baby started to quiet down as Tyler kept speaking and bouncing her, “I can’t tell you how lucky you are that the woman sleeping in the other room is your mom. I mean, everyday I think about how crazy it is that she’s my wife. We both really won the lottery with that one, hun.” 

Tyler studies her little face as she stares captive up at him. She has Jenna’s eyes no doubt, his nose, and what Josh swears is Tyler’s forehead. 

He loves her so much it scares him. He doesn’t feel ready to be a dad. Not even a little bit. 

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you about it, I think I’ll have to, but when I was younger I didn’t think I’d have any of this. I didn’t think someone like your mom would ever dream of loving me, I didn’t think I was worth it. And when I look back and think about that kid, the one who didn’t think I’d ever be standing here holding you, I think about how scared he was. Just like you probably were. I can’t blame you, world’s a scary place, and you’re just getting to know it. But I’ll tell you what: we’ve made it this far, kid.” Tyler smiles at the words, feels a strange sense that time is all jelly and he knew exactly when he’d be saying the words again when he wrote them. “And it’s just gonna keep getting better, I swear it will.” 

She’s drifted back off to sleep now. Tyler brings her up and kisses her small head lightly before placing her back in the crib. 

He leaves a hand on her stomach for a second, watches and feels her breathe. Tyler admires what a miracle in moving parts she is, her little chest rising and falling, _alive alive alive. _

Tyler feels like a forest—or maybe a garden since Jenna loves those so much—he feels green and alive and new. Full of flowers and leaves and bugs and a thousand other living things, a beating ivy heart and breathing lily lungs made of _life life life._

He realizes as he lies back down next to Jenna, that this is the life he fought for every day. He’s never felt this alive, never felt this happy. 

There are still days and nights where he doesn’t feel like this at all and that’s okay. 

But he can count the number of those in the last few months on his hands. Which makes him smile as he drifts off.

Before he sleeps, his last thought is to write that down or tell Jenna in the morning or put it in a song or maybe all three. 

Three sets of even breaths are heard throughout the night, _alive alive alive_. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> how do I already love baby pilot SO MUCH it’s unreal 
> 
> thank you morgan for being the one who inspired this fic, that line killed me <3
> 
> catch me on tumblr @chlorineacoustic


End file.
